- Darusha’s Network » archive for 'House Of Websters'
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Earn Money from your Website
- February 23rd, 2009
So you have heard that there is money to be made out of websites. By setting up a number of websites you can make money from home, become a millionaire and retire! Well, if it was as easy as all that anyone would be doing it!
Once you have set up any website you can become an affiliate of any number of organisations and put adverts up on your site. If anyone buys a product through a link on your website you get paid a commission. The only problem with this is that the products really need to be in line with the subject matter of your site. If people have found your site because they searched Google looking for photos of puppies, they may not be all that interested in the ads for mobile phones or MP3 players they see there!
One way of getting adverts which are targeted to your site is to use Google Adwords. Google displays adverts on your site which are connected with the content on your pages – you do need to have a content rich site, as Google may not accept you if you don’t. When people click on the adverts you get paid – sometimes it is only one or two cents a click, but sometimes you get dollars for each click!
So how much income can I get?
Most webmasters can at least expect to pay for their hosting fees from hosting Google ads on their sites, but you shouldn’t expect to be able to retire on the income.
I’m not after earning pennies – I want to get a proper second income!
If you really want to get serious money there are some things you can do.
1. Have a number of different websites – you may not make a fortune from each, but having a number on different subjects will allow you to experiment, try different ideas and generate a better income!
2. Base your websites on keywords where clicks on google ads pay the highest amount – but you will need to make your site attractive so that you get enough visitors to make it pay!
3. Base your websites on keywords where there are only a few competing websites (thus guaranteeing you a position on page 1 of the search engines) which will ensure you get the number of visitors you need!
OK, good advice but where on earth do I start?
Firstly, remember that for each website you are going to need to purchase a domain name. Multiple websites are therefore an investment. Make sure that your hosting company enables you to have more than one domain on your account – otherwise it is going to be very expensive to set up and before you see any return!
I’ve got an idea, but is it competitive?
Wordtracker is a progam that is extremely useful when you are deciding to set up a website for making money. It will tell you how many people actually search for the keywords you have in mind, and how many other sites there are that will be in competition with you for that top spot in the search engines!
Remember, people normally only look at the first 10 items returned by a search engine. If there are many competing sites, the chances of you being in the first 10, or on the first page is very small.
Keywords are just one element – although some sites do read like a list of key words (a trick search engines are aware of and will black list) – what is really necessary is to put up some quality content based around the key words you have chosen. This way you will be offering something to your visitor, and can now start to put targetted adverts to generate an income stream as well. Remember though you do need to get visitors – it is no use using keywords which no one ever searches on!
Pat Ransom has worked in the IT industry for 15 years and is experienced with local government and company websites. Having designed and published a successful and acclaimed website in her own right the secrets of website design and publishing are now shared at http://www.webmasterproductions.co.uk
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The Power Is In The Pipes: How To Get Maximum Leverage From Your Website
- February 23rd, 2009
What is the most important part of your online business?Many people would say: “my website”. And that’sunderstandable – it’s the most visible part of an internetbusiness.
But the real power in your online business is email. It’sthe ability to reach your database of contacts at the clickof a button. The efficiency of your email pipeline willdetermine how much money your business makes.
Your website is just a way of building your mailing list -by collecting the email addresses of your visitors.
In fact, we’re not talking about one list, but several.Here are the lists that I maintain – they’re all people whoat one time or another have visited my websites:
- people who have bought my products- people who have signed up to receive my articles- people who have joined my affiliate program- people who have signed up for my email course- people who have joined my newsletter
So why are these lists so important?
Because most of your visitors won’t buy on the firstcontact. Statistics show that most people will need to seeyour message 7 times before they make a purchase. So ifyou’re not collecting the email addresses of your visitors,you are losing out on a lot of sales.
But there is one list in particular that is like gold. It’syour list of previous customers. These people arepredisposed to buying from you. In fact, some businessesmake 80% of their sales from previous customers.
All well and good – but what do I do with these lists?
Here are some ideas:
- announce your latest product to your customer list
- announce your latest product to your affiliates list
- send your latest article to your articles list
- announce your latest product in your newsletter
- publish your latest article in your newsletter
- announce ‘related’ products to your customer list
- send your latest article to your affiliates list so they can use
it to promote your products
For each list that you manage you will need (1) anautoresponder account or an autoresponder script and (2) away of capturing your visitor’s email address.
(1) Autoresponder Accounts
An autoresponder account gives you the ability to manage alist without installing software – it’s all done on aremote website. Most autoresponder accounts will give you:
- an email address for subscribing- an HTML form for subscribing- seven or more follow-up messages- a confirmation email to you every time someone joins- the ability to broadcast messages to your list- the ability to personalize your messages- database of your prospects- online stats
Here are some sites that offer autoresponder accounts:
http://www.proautoresponder.com/
http://www.infogeneratorpro.com/
http://www.auto-responder.co.uk/
Now, autoresponder accounts cost between $17 and $20 permonth. And with most autoresponder services you can onlymanage one list per account. So if you are managing 5lists, that quickly adds up to a hefty monthly bill.
But there are a few services that allow you to managemultiple lists with one account. Here are some of them:
(2) Capturing Email Addresses
The most popular way to get new subscribers to your list isa ’subscribe form’ that pops up when your website loads. Iget 25 to 30 new subscribers a day using this technique.The HTML code for the subscribe form usually comes withyour autoresponder account.
Another way to invite visitors to join your list is an’alert box’. An alert box is a small gray dialogue box thatpops up when someone visits your website. It usually sayssomething like: “Please subscribe to my Newsletter. 5 FreeeBooks when you join”. It’s impossible to ignore an alertbox – you have to either close it or click OK to continue.
Alert boxes have two advantages over subscribe forms.Firstly, there’s no form to fill in, so it’s much easierfor people to join your list. People who have switched froma subscribe form to an alert box report 3 to 5 times asmany subscribers.
Secondly, alert boxes capture only “real” email addresses -the email address from the visitor’s client browser. Youend up with very few Hotmail and Yahoo addresses, whichmeans you’ll have a much more responsive list. For moreinformation about alert boxes, visit:http://www.optinlightning.com/
So to sum up, use your website to build several optinmailing lists and you’ll have a private audience of peopleyou can market to over and over again – it’s the key torunning a successful online business.
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Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
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Do Small/Medium Size Businesses Need a Website?
- February 19th, 2009
The answer to that question is probably “Yes” but then you will say, I would say that because it is my business- so don’t take my word for it you figure out if your business need a website. Before you spend any money ask yourself the following questions:
Do your customer look for your services/products on the net?
Yes! most of the average British house hold have access to internet and they would research before they part with their hard earned money. So your customer will expect to find you on the net.Do your competitors have a website?
Imagine that a prospective client is considering hiring your business and is attempting to use the web to compare your services to the competitors. If you don’t have a site, it makes you appear less established and professional. Its like not having a business card.Are your competitors larger than you?
If your business is very small, or you’re just starting out, you may want it to appear larger than it is. A well-designed and highly professional website gives the appearance that your business is large and established.Do you want to expand your customer base?
If you want to grow your business, you will need a web site to reach clients in new areas. Suppose you’ve always focused on one industry, but now want to offer a new service tailored to a different industry. Your website can be easily modified to accomodate the intended audience.Investing in website is not very expensive business now, if you go for a right company- There are company offering basic website package starting from £250. Some company also offer a free basic training along with the web package to get you started.
Rubelon WebTec – We specialize in creating professional custom-made web sites for small and medium sized businesses, not-for-profit organisations and personal web sites.
We are qualified software professionals specialised in web designing. We are located in Crawley, West Sussex, UK.
We believe in helping charity organisations, small/medium size businesses to have a web presence. We are open to new ideas and challenges.
We work with you to create what you want right from the initial planning.
We provide complete professional design at fixed prices from a range of web design packages to match the needs of all types of customers. – Basic web package starting at £250
Visit – http://www.RubelonWebtec.com or http://www.RubelonWebtec.co.uk -
Elite Web Design With Denver Web Site Design
- February 19th, 2009
Do you need web design, graphic design, search engine optimization or Internet marketing? Denver web site design firms can provide you great deal about these concerns. Because there is a great competition between them, Denver web site design based firms have evolved, now being capable of using new programming techniques and methods, advanced graphic design, smart web site architecture; this way guaranteeing your success. Just pick up some Denver web site design firms and try looking at their portfolios. Yes, that is right! Denver web site design companies are the elite of US web design firms.
If you need updating your old web site and get more visitors on it, Denver web site design firms concentrated on Internet marketing can help you set up an effective marketing campaign in order to get more clients or customers to your web site. They also can do a cool makeover for your outdated web site or add some new features, buttons and functions to it.
But, the most important thing that Denver web site design companies can do for you is providing you with an effective identity design. This will make a big difference at the competition in the large or small business arenas. The identity design is called the company logo. It is known that the logo is the first glimpse of your business identity that people will se when they visit your web site. That is why you could work with a Denver web site design firm if you want to have a good looking company logo composed of colors, graphics and design styles that represent the best your business.
A good web site is much more than just colors and graphics. Denver web site design firms know that and can offer your site branding, usability, functionality and a good aspect.
In the end I would like to mention that some Denver web site design companies have earned prises at web design contests. Hiring them would be a good and wise decision because you will have the best of the best.
This article is written by Grojan Fabiola as a result of a research on Denver web site design in order for all the viewers of this article will find useful hints on their subject. So, if you want to find more info about Denver web site design please don’t hesitate to click.
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How To Design Your Website For Optimal Productivity
- February 14th, 2009
What works best when promoting your web site.
Eight Simple, Yet Essential, Web Design Principles
by: Alan RichardsonAs the internet evolves from its infancy into maturity, website development, design and marketing becomes more and more sophisticated – and more and more complex. Content manipulation, various scripting methods, fancy graphics and effects… and on and on… allow us to create some impressive web sites.
A good gauge of this complexity is the a slew of new internet-related acronyms which popup on a consistent basis. Heck, I don’t know what half of them mean. But one acronym I do know – and it’s not an internet creation – is nevertheless key to the development and design of any successful business website. Perhaps you’ve heard of it – K.I.S.S. As you probably know, it stands for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid!’. And it’s a methodology widely employed by the best web developers, designers and marketers in the business. A philosophy that provides the foundation for all successful revenue-generating web sites.
From the largest, multi-product online business conglomerate to the one-page one-product mini-site, the purpose is the same. Provide visitors, whether internet savvy or first time surfers, with an online experience that’s fast, efficient, easy to understand – and dare I say it… yes, enjoyable.
Whether your an entrepreneur building your own web site, or reviewing one built for you by a web development and design expert, it is important your web site, your online business, adheres to these eight simple, yet essential, design principles. Heed them, and online success is sure to follow. Ignore them, at your peril. Here they are.
Each web page must have a purpose – and that purpose must be clearly stated. While a consistent design ‘look and feel’ is vital across all pages of your web site, each page has a specific function to perform. And that function should be clearly understood by all visitors to your web site. Whether it’s to elicit feedback, provide feedback, promote your company, present product information, etc., all play a role in your ultimate goal of growing your business.
Navigation around and through your business web site must be clearly visible and easy to use. See my article on web site navigation for more details.
Avoid distraction and clutter by minimizing usage of fancy flashing and moving objects, which provide more sizzle than steak, and make your essential products or services harder to find.
All business websites should have contact information clearly visible. A ‘Contact’ page is minimum. It’s also advisable to include contact information on every page of your web site. You never know when the urge to turn from prospect to customer will strike your visitor.
Not everyone has broadband. Yes, there are still a fair number of users surfing the internet with slower, less efficient, dial-up access. That may change in the future, but it’s a reality today. Ignore this substantial customer base and you’re business will surely suffer. To avoid this pitfall, pay careful attention to eliminate internet-clogging elements on your web site. When possible, use text instead of graphics, static graphics instead of animation, several smaller pages instead of one large page. Do this and you can feed quite well on the desertions from your flashier competitors.
For those who are broadband users, who are not negatively effected by all those ‘bells and whistles’, who may actually enjoy such an impressive display, remember, ‘form follows function’. This is especially important on a business web site, where functionality is key. All else is fluff and distraction.
For those of us who may be ‘visually challenged, make sure your web site is easy to see. Avoid fancy fonts and use the more legible standard-bearers, such as Times New Roman, Courier New, Arial and Verdana. For standard text, use font sizes of at least 10 pt… 12 pt is better. On many a web site, font sizes of 8 pt or less are used, perhaps in an effort to avoid the need to scroll. Let me tell you… it’s much better to scroll than to squint. For when I squint, I usually stroll… right out of the site. It’s also a good practice to limit the use of italics as they too are harder to read. Lastly, pay attention to text and background color. Although white text on a black background looks cool at first glance, it can quickly strain the eyes. You don’t want to do anything that will cut your visitor’s journey through your business web site..
Whenever possible, limit page lengths to no more than two page-downs. It is better for performance (page loading) and visitor attention when pages are short, quick reads. If necessary, breakup your text into multiple pages, with a ‘continued’ designation at the bottom of each page.
There you go. Eight simple, yet essential, web site design principles that can spell the difference between online business success or failure. Always remember, you’re never more than one-click away from visitor abandonment. K.I.S.S. your website and it will reward you abundantly.Alan Richardson is a well-known internet consultant and publisher with http://www.optimalwebservices.com – a Web resource firm in North Easton, Massachusetts, offering free advice and information for web-based small businesses and entrpreneurs.
To read other articles by Alan, click here.
To signup for the free ‘Optimal Web Services for Small Business’ ezine, click hereAlan Richardson is a well-known internet consultant and publisher with www.optimalwebservices.com – a Web resource firm in North Easton, Massachusetts, offering free advice and information for web-based small business entrepreneurs.
To read other articles by Alan, click www.optimalwebservices.com/articles
To signup for the free ‘Optimal Web Services for Small Business’ ezine, click www.optimalwebservices.com/subscribe
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Tips on How to Design a Great Site
- February 10th, 2009
Have you ever walked pass a shop that, for some reason, you just felt that you had to go in? Maybe it was the décor, or the window display, or the pretty girl, or a combination of all those but something in the shop called out to you, “Come in” and you just had to obey.
In the online world, won’t it be nice to have a site that buyers just had to buy from, despite themselves? Surfers will be drawn to the “Add to Cart” button that squealed, “Click me!” to them. They found that they just had to click the button and buy the item.
While I can assure you I can’t design such a site, and I certainly am not going to reveal how to design it in a free article even if I can, there are many ways to make your site more friendly to your visitor.
The following tips will make your site load more faster, easier to use and more pleasing to your visitor. While they won’t guarantee you a sale, a happier and more satisfied surfer should greatly increase your chances of a sale.
DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL
Probably the first thing you want to do is to visit some of your competitor’s sites. It will give you an idea of what your site could look like, what features you want for your own site and serve as a starting point for the design of your own site.
Perhaps the best advice I can give you here is to look at the sites from a customer’s point of view. As a customer, what do you like or dislike about the sites? Would you buy from them, and why? Are you going to revisit again, and why?
EASE OF NAVIGATION
In many cases, you don’t read a web site like you would a novel. You don’t start from page 1, continue to page 2, and so on.
You would probably “read” a site like you would a reference book. Maybe you will read the introduction to get an idea of what the book is about, and then you will skip to the table of contents to look for the location of the information that you need. In some cases, you may turn to the index at the back of the book to see what on what pages the information you want is referred to.
Notice the navigation aids – the table of contents and the index. The first will be found at the beginning while the second, if available, at the end of the book. This is a standard observed by all books.
Your site should be as easy to navigate.
- Main Menu. You should have a menu, located either at the top, left or right, that directs users to the various sections of your site. This menu should be available from every page of your site, and at the same location.
- Site Map. If your site is relatively large, and you feel that users may have a problem locating the information they want even with a main menu, consider including a site map. Site maps give much more detail than the main menu and users will have an easier time locating the information they want.
- Search Engine. If your site is a very large site, including a search engine is a good idea. FAST LOADING PAGES
Many webmasters will have broadband or cable connections and they tend to forget about the poor souls still struggling with dialup.
It is best that you keep the size of your pages as small as possible to accommodate users with slow connections. A general guideline is to keep the size of your pages below 100k.
GRAPHICS
Pretty graphics are nice to look at. But unless your site is about graphics, it’s probably best to keep it to a minimum. It distracts users the information you want to convey, and increases the load time for your pages.
Don’t forget to optimize the graphics that you use. The jpeg graphic format is a compressed format. You can choose to compress it as much or as little as you want. The more you compress it, the smaller it becomes, but the image is of a lower quality.
To optimize your jpeg’s, start with a jpeg of acceptable quality. Save the jpeg with more compression and view it. If you find the quality acceptable, save it again with even more compression. Keep doing it until you get an image with unacceptable quality. The image before that will be your optimized image.
Note that you cannot go from a low quality image back to a high quality image. So remember to save your high quality images into a separate directory before trying any optimization.
CONSISTENCY
We discussed consistency regarding the location of your main menu. This consistency should extend to all areas of your site. In other words, your fonts, color scheme, buttons, etc, should be the same for all pages of your site.
TESTING
The computer on your desk is called a PC, or personal computer. Whenever I am asked why a particular computer behaves in a strange way, I will invariably remark that the computer is called a “personal computer”, and thus will exhibit its own personality.
Similarly, surfers viewing your site will also have their own personal computer, with their own particular combination of software and hardware. Therefore, it is best to test your site under as many different types and versions of hardware and software as possible.
- Browsers. Although IE is the dominant browser, some of your users may be running other browsers like Netscape or Firefox. Test your site in as many different browsers as you can. Also, don’t forget to test it under different versions of the same browser.
- Screen Resolutions. Don’t forget to test your site under different screen resolutions.
- Java and ActiveX. Many sites depend on Java or ActiveX to display properly. If your site needs a Java enabled browser, try it with Java disabled and see how it looks. If possible, it is best that your site will function correctly even if the users have Java or ActiveX disabled.
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Reseller web hosting plan – choosing a right reseller and a proper plan
- February 2nd, 2009
Reseller web hosting plan is an easy business from web hosting bandwagon. It is but splitting up the drive space and bandwidth to give resellers resources so that they can provide the services that a major web hosting company provides even if they don’t know much technicalities of hosting.
If you are going to subscribe space and bandwidth from giant web hosting companies – http://www.serverplex.com/corporate.html, you should know to manage web server services through control panels, though your dedicated server does most of the maintenance task. As a part of marketing you can plan alluring resellers with different hosting packages. You can also use some reseller hosting programs and GUI control panels that will enable your clients to manage their web resources.
Once you have the space, bandwidth and hosting programs, you will deal with add/remove accounts on a server, point domains, control bandwidth, manage disk space and more. Dealing in reseller web site hosting plan you might have offer more space and bandwidth then a regular shared web hosting – http://www.serverplex.com/sharedh.html, plan. Web hosting is very competitive business that your success depends on the performance of your dedicated server. Cheaper reseller hosting to win the price war may sometimes be dangerous in case of a long time downtime. Because most of the web resources today are dynamic where the profit may depend on the search engine rankings.
Offering multiple domain names on a shared hosting account can one of the value additions to your reseller hosting package. Other selling points of your service can be flexible packages in terms of space and price, and options to upgrade space over time. Because a successful client will need more space after some time.
Before you dive into reseller web hosting plan – http://www.serverplex.com/reseller.html, make sure to:
* Choose a reliable host * Offer flexible web hosting packages in terms of price and space * Offer user-friendly Control Panel to the clients * Handle customer queries fast
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What Is The Best Web Hosting Service?
- January 30th, 2009
Is there really a magic formula to determine the best web hosting service? I’m sure thousands of people want to know the answer to this question if there was one. To be honest, there is no absolute correct answer to this. As you know, individual results will vary from person to person in terms of what they want out of a service.
If there was a way to find the “best” web host to ensure you made the right choice, would you be interested?
Hopefully the answer is yes!
I want you to understand that there is no “best” web hosting service but there are some measures or steps to help find what’s best for you.
The tips that follow should help someone new or experienced choose the best possible host the first time around. It can even help those looking to switch hosts avoid making the same mistake twice.
Here’s a checklist to help you get started in choosing a great host:
* Look at what’s in front of you
* How is the service and support?
* Testimonial testLet’s take the first point; look at what’s in front of you. No, really. Look directly at what’s in front of you. When you visit the web host, how does it present itself visually? If it doesn’t look up to par in terms of presentation you may want to avoid them.
Low-quality graphics may indicate your typical “fly-by-night” type of company that won’t be around very long. Even though anyone can produce high-quality looking websites, this should raise a red flag if identified. While we’re on the look of the website, another turn off should be misspellings.
Misspellings can indicate a business that doesn’t take pride in how they operate. Would you trust your website in a company that doesn’t take pride in their business? There’s no excuse for misspellings when a lot of applications contain spell checkers.
Service and support
This is by far the most important thing to have no matter what type of product or service you get. After all, things do fail or break down and you may need extended support. A way to check the reliability of a web host is to put them to the test.
Find a contact number (some even provide a toll free number) or send them an email to inquire about something they offer. That way you can see how long it takes before you actually talk to someone or for them to respond to emails. A good response time for emails should be within 24 hours. Especially with the large volume of inquiries they may receive on a daily basis. Doing this will allow you to see how friendly and helpful their support staff is as well.
Testimonial test
I’m sure you’ve seen many websites post testimonials to help give credibility to their products and services. A good cross check you can do is send the person who gave the testimonial an email to find out what they like and don’t like about the web host.
You should be able to contact the individual since websites will usually include the person’s url back to his or her site as an incentive for giving the testimonial. Doing this task will help you make a better decision whether or not to invest in the hosting service according to the feedback received from the customer.
Using these three points is a great way to gauge whether or not the host is a good choice for you. Taking the time now to research the service will save you headaches and disappointment down the road.
I know there were 3 tips mentioned above, but I wanted to throw in a fourth way to help you get the best hosting solution possible. A word of mouth recommendation is one way you can’t go wrong. Ask a few friends or colleagues if they have used a particular host and for how long.
You may want to ask if they’ve switched from another host and the reason for changing. Be sure to inquire why they continue to stay with the current host. This is a great way to gather the pros and cons of certain hosts based on the first-hand experience of others. It will also help you make a better informed decision before deciding to invest your hard earned money on a host provider.
Larry Washington is the webmaster and publisher of GR8 Website Hosting where he provides great information on a secure web hosting solution. You can browse his website to get more information at gr8-website-hosting.com. The article above can be republished only if this entire resource box is left intact along with the original hyperlinks.
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Basic brochure design in Two
- January 30th, 2009
You may already know some of the many different tips and techniques on designing your brochures. Based from what you have learned and followed, you might be thinking that you have the perfect type of brochure for your business.
But do you know the characteristics that your brochures have?
These characteristics are the factors that make up these cards even before you put all the styles and techniques you chose. It is best to know them before deciding on the appearance itself.
What are the two characteristics of a good brochure?
Brochure type number 1:
This brochure is designed to attract attention. It plays on the emotions of the customer. When they see it in a display rack they must pick it up and see what it says. It has an attention getting headline. It is designed to spend all its time, on public display, exposed to as much of your target market as possible. It will contain lots of white space and short thoughts rather than long paragraphs.
It contains a “call to action” that requires or asks the customer to make a phone call, come on down, clip a coupon, mail a reply card or some other action that puts you and the customer in contact. Think of this brochure as the appetizer of your business. Something to tickle the pallet but still leave them hungry.
Brochure type number 2:
Think of this brochure as the main course. This brochure is designed for the customer who has learned of your company and has requested more information.
They might have seen your “Type One” brochure described above. Unlike Type One, Type Two can be crammed with information. Customers who request information want to know everything. They become insatiable for product knowledge.
No matter what you send, it may not be enough to satisfy some customers.
This style of brochure should never be used in display racks or laid out for the curious passerby. A casual customer who is unfamiliar with your business will be “turned off” by the thought of wadding through this mountain of information just to see what you do.
Now that you know the functions of your brochures, maybe it is time to think about designing them again to better serve the purpose you want it to have.
For those who do not have one yet, consider the two characteristics first and create the brochure that will work effectively for you.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.digitalprintingcompany.com
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Traffic: Let Your Web Hosting Company Be Your Guide
- January 25th, 2009
Presumably you have a website because you want people to visit it. Visitors are traffic. And generating a constant flow of fresh traffic, both unique and repeat visitors, will take up more of your energies than probably any other website-related task, including website maintenance and sales. It is with this imperative in mind that web hosting companies have begun offering their customers assistance in generating that traffic.
URL Submission
One of the most basic and common ways that web hosting companies help you get traffic to your site is by offering to submit your URL for you to the major search engines, such as Google or Ask Jeeves, for free. While this is certainly a nice convenience, submitting your URL to the major search engines is already free and doesn’t take all that much time. So to impress you with their traffic generating wiles, a web hosting company is going to have to do more than just this.
That said, some web hosting companies include with their free URL submission services, free submission not only to search engines but to directory websites (web portals), classified pages, and blogs. That’s a bit more useful, as your time can be much better spent. Just make sure you know exactly where the web hosting company does submit your URL to and where it does not.
And it’s not as simple as submitting your URL once to each place and leaving it at that. To remain competitive (not to mention relevant), you’ll need to resubmit your URL to each place on a recurring basis. Conversely, however, it is frowned upon and may even be detrimental to your traffic-generating efforts, to resubmit your site too often or too frequently. If your web hosting company offers free URL submission services, find out how often they resubmit it to each place and what guidelines they use to set their submission schedule.
Search Engine Optimization
Many web hosting companies offer free Search Engine Optimization tools and tips with their web hosting services. The object of SEO is to catapult your free listings on the major search engines to the top of the first page of results for your chosen keywords. There are a number of excellent methods for using SEO to dramatically increase traffic to your website, including website review and SEO analysis, keyword and keyword phrase suggestion and selection, and header/footer/meta-tag generation.
Any web hosting company that offers free SEO tools with their web hosting packages is well worth considering.
Reciprocal Linking
Web hosting companies may also offer Reciprocal Linking services, where they help you find other sites that already receive the targeted traffic you desire and arrange to post a link to each other’s site on your own respective sites. This is another of the most effective and beneficial free forms of targeted lead generation. If a web hosting company offers you free reciprocal linking assistance, it’s a definite plus.
Tracking and Reports
Quite possibly the most valuable traffic tool a web hosting company can provide you is tracking. And simple click tracking (tracking how many clicks your homepage/landing page gets) isn’t enough. You want to know and compare the number of unique visitors and repeat visitors. You want to know the paths visitors took clicking through your site. And you want to know your conversion rate, or how many of each type of visit resulted in a signup or a sale.
The best web hosting companies won’t merely track these statistics for you, but they’ll generate reports comparing and evaluating the results and making suggestions on how to improve your traffic generating campaign.
Copywriting
The benefits of heavy traffic (namely: more traffic) don’t come just by getting people to click to your site; you also have to keep them there. One of the best ways to hold a visitor’s interest is with interesting content relevant to what they’re looking for.
Many web hosting companies will help you create compelling and relevant content to post at your site which will serve to key ends; it will captivate visitors to stay at your site (and even click around to explore more of what you’ve got) and it will give you better and better search engine rankings.
Website Building
With that in mind, don’t underestimate the power of a well-designed website. People don’t spend much time on a site that’s unattractive, error-filled (whether textual or graphical) or difficult to navigate. At the absolute least, a web hosting company should give you a website editor/builder that helps you design the kind of website loved by search engines and visitors alike.
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